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I’d like to start today with a big thank you to everyone who joined me for the first week of Deal Flow. There was plenty to cover, that’s for sure: Five newsletters and more than 12,000 words on everything from railroad rivalries to edible insects.
Here’s a recap of 11 things you need to know from that busy week, beginning with a banner quarter at Blackstone that is the latest example of the firm’s seemingly insatiable investing ambitions:
1. Blackstone’s bonanza
When Blackstone reported its latest quarterly earnings this week, the green thumb of firm president Jonathan Gray was on full display.

Jonathan Gray was Blackstone’s head of real estate before taking over as president and COO in 2018.
© 2012 Bloomberg Finance LP
It was a record-breaking stretch in several respects. Blackstone logged $1.75 billion in net income for the quarter, a year-over-year increase of more than $2.8…